Two years before the public learned of Hillary Clinton’s private server, the State Department gave an “inaccurate and incomplete” response about her email use when it told an outside group that it had no documents about Clinton’s email accounts beyond her government address, according to a report from the State Department’s inspector general to be released Thursday.

The State Department made its statement in response to a 2012 records request from the independent watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). The response came even though Clinton’s chief of staff, who knew about the secretary’s private account, was aware of the inquiry, the report says. In addition, the IG review found that agency staffers had not searched Clinton’s office for emails.

The incident was one of four cases that the report highlights as examples of flawed responses to public-records requests made while Clinton was in office. The report found it was part of a long-standing problem stretching back through previous administrations.

Clinton’s exclusive use of a private email system, which became public in March 2015, led to an FBI investigation into whether her unusual arrangement had compromised national secrets.

After a firestorm of controversy, Clinton’s email practice has become more muted as a campaign issue in recent months as she has maintained her status as the Democratic presidential front-runner. Read more at the Washington Post.